News Roundup: Cataclysm World In Game Longer Than Original Azeroth, Blizzard Holiday Activity and Campus Decorations

Today's news roundup features a look at Blizzard's holiday decorations for the iconic Orc Statue on campus, a blue post on Blizzard holiday activity, and a gallery of pre-Cataclysm screenshots inspired by a Reddit post pointing out that the post-Cataclysm world has now been in game longer than the original pre-Cataclysm world. We feel really old.

Cataclysm Zone Changes

The Cataclysm world has actually been in-game a little bit longer than the Reddit thread noted; the new zone changes went into place on November 23rd, 2010, in Patch 4.0.3a after the Cataclysm Pre-Launch Event concluded. This featured Elemental Invasions all over Azeroth and Fenditure cataclismiche. By adjusting calculations, the Cataclysm world surpassed the original world on November 22nd, 2016 when it reached the 2192nd day.

Since Wowhead has been around for years, we dug through our user-submitted archive of screenshots to bring you pictures of Azeroth before these changes:

Azshara used to be a pretty-empty zone filled with Elven ruins. Since Cataclysm it's been the goblin capital and the ruins are interspersed with pollution and goblin structures.

Mount Hyjal was a walled-off area and Darkwhisper Gorge in Fontefredda looked very different.

Along with the zone changes, many old questlines and factions were lost, such as the Shen'dralar elves in Dire Maul, the friendly Tribù Zandalari with Zul'Gurub, the Veterano delle Sabbie Mutevoli quetstline, the Zelda questline , and the original Tirion Fordring questline (Costituisciti) in Western Plaguelands. Learn more about this content via the comments in the linked pages.

Take a walk down memory lane with Wowhead's original preview of the Cataclysm changes many years ago. There are also many more screenshots visible if you navigate to a zone page and look at the earliest images submitted via the Screenshot tab.

Blizzard Campus Decorations

The Orc Statue at Blizzard Entertainment has gotten into the holiday spirit with a festive knitted sweater as well as decorations for the wolf (including a red nose), knitted cover for the battle-axe, and Horde Santa hat. In the back of the statue Pepe keeps watch over the presents. We stopped by campus one night to take more pictures too!

Blizzard Holiday Activity

Blizzard

Hey all!

As you are undoubtedly aware, Winter Veil is soon to come to Azeroth, bringing with it a season of good cheer and high spirits, as well as a time where we gather together with those who we hold closest to us - family, friends, and colleagues.

In the same spirit, winter is upon us, and we wanted to take this chance to share some notices on our activity throughout the remainder of the holiday season and on into the New Year.

There will be less Blizzard employee activity and engagement across most World of Warcraft forums, especially the PTR forums and General Discussion.

There will be reduced activity and engagement on World of Warcraft's social media, particularly notable is @WarcraftDevs, which will have reduced activity through to the new year.

Customer Support staff will still be hard at work during the holidays - if you need to contact Customer Support for any reason, you will be able to do so through the Blizzard Support site. Please take note that there will still be Support staff monitoring the forums and assisting with moderation, and our Customer Support forums will remain active through the holiday season!

It’s important to note that we will still be going over threads posted during the holidays when we return, so continue to share your thoughts and feedback while we’re away!

We’d like to thank everyone for their understanding as we step away from our keyboards and take time to travel and visit with our loved ones. We look forward to returning after the holidays in 2017, for what looks to be an amazing year for both Blizzard and World of Warcraft.

From all of us here at Blizzard: Happy holidays, happy New Year, and we will see you in 2017!

Commenti

Commento di hstella

on 2016-12-19T12:51:56-06:00

and now im like 1 item away of my Legendary daggers :(

Commento di Mightyena5875345

on 2016-12-19T12:55:15-06:00

I didn't join until the middle of WotLK and even I feel super old! I only played in the original world for a little over a year and it still feels like it was around longer than the Cataclysm world to me!

Commento di Lawltant

on 2016-12-19T13:00:47-06:00

It's a sad thing that the original world has been gone longer than it was around for now... I so miss the old world. Less Meme related Goblin quests. Oh how I wish I could see the old world just one last time!

Commento di Interest

on 2016-12-19T13:07:50-06:00

Well, I guess I can safely say the leveling experience could use an update then since the Cata version of Azeroth has been in game that long, right?

But really though, the leveling flow is a lot better and surprisingly consistent with leveling content today. Content in Cata Azeroth really just needs a bit of mechanical tuning and the like to better prepare players for level cap. Knowing Blizzard, they'll probably just add some level scaling to older zones and other small changes and call it a day (to be fair it would help), but I hope I'm wrong on this and they're more thorough.

On a somewhat related note, being able to use the Bronze Dragonflight to visit older versions of zones (like the legacy ones) could be a nice idea to consider if only for posterity. Then both worlds can "age" together :P.

Commento di perculia

We've made a note of it; based on the popularity of the thread it looked like many other people didn't realize the earlier date, so let's use this opportunity to reflect on all the cool zones and quests that were swept away.

Commento di oa127

on 2016-12-19T13:44:17-06:00

I still need to finish the Un'goro Crater and STV questlines from post-Cata achievements.

If only it didn't wreck my Pirate reputation.

Commento di Darknature

on 2016-12-19T13:50:08-06:00

Bring Back ashenvale is old quest with dartol's rod of transformation

Commento di Gnoblesse

on 2016-12-19T13:51:48-06:00

Thanks for noting it - it was kind of funny how I realized it, actually. A few of us on reddit were talking about it on what turned out to be the literal day before. :)

Commento di Razuu

on 2016-12-19T13:52:49-06:00

Perhaps a new revamp is in order, but it's probably unlikely it will happen.

Commento di tonydizzle

on 2016-12-19T13:57:54-06:00

Auberdine in

Ahhh the days of questing in zone148... much faster-paced than zone147, but not nearly as crammed with players and zone149... :P

Commento di Qualanthar

on 2016-12-19T14:21:39-06:00

I still miss the unflooded Thousand Islands. Something about the scope of those mesas.

Commento di Gulver

on 2016-12-19T14:44:59-06:00

*shake cane* Get the hell off my lawn, you damn Cataclysm!

Commento di Leone

on 2016-12-19T15:27:25-06:00

I can't figure out from where the second last screenshot is from.Can anyone identify it?

Commento di lankybrit

on 2016-12-19T15:50:54-06:00

Less engagement on the forums? That's a laugh.

Commento di vikn

on 2016-12-19T16:35:58-06:00

It's weird I was just wondering (on Friday) about this, I still can't really comprehend that Cataclysm is further back then vanilla was for us during Wrath.

Commento di vikn

on 2016-12-19T16:41:18-06:00

I can't figure out from where the second last screenshot is from.Can anyone identify it?

Had to research it: Entrance to Hyjal from Darkwhisper Gorge. Quite obscure place.

The gate was of course never open as Hyjal didn't exist in game at that time.